An attorney alleging in two federal lawsuits that deputies at a San Bernardino County jail routinely abused inmates with Taser guns said Friday he will soon be filing a third lawsuit with 35 new plaintiffs.

Victorville attorney James Terrell said the lawsuit should be filed within the next two weeks. In May, he and Victorville attorneys Sharon Brunner and Stanley Hodge filed two lawsuits on behalf of 10 inmates at the jail after the FBI and San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department announced in April that criminal and internal affairs investigations had been launched.

“The things we have learned from our clients are truly horrifying. The torture and abuse was perpetrated by several very demented and socially deviant San Bernardino deputies,” Terrell said in an email Friday. “The actions of these officers will come to light very soon, we believe, and are so awful that they violate basic principles of human decency.”

The new lawsuit comes in the wake of a federal grand jury proceeding in Riverside that Terrell said concluded Wednesday with the testimony of one of his clients.

Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, declined to comment, as did San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon, named as a defendant in each of the five federal lawsuits filed to date.

Terrell said he and Brunner have traveled up and down the state in the last year, visiting jails, state prisons and federal prisons, meeting with alleged victims — most former food servers in the protective custody unit at West Valley who allegedly were singled out by deputies.

Inmates housed in the protective custody unit at the jail wear green jumpsuits and are segregated from the jail’s general population because they are susceptible to violent attacks by other inmates.

Inmates say they were subjected to a brutal hazing ritual of Taser gun abuse by deputies — the price they pay for the privileges that come with the title of “chow server” including more television and telephone time and freedom to move around the jail.

“Ironically, it was prisoners housed in protective custody for their own personal safety and protection . . . who were singled out by the individual defendants for abuse and torture, presumably because of their inability to retaliate and protect themselves,” Los Angeles attorney Matthew Eanet said in a lawsuit filed on behalf of former West Valley inmate Eric Wayne Smith on Jan. 25.

Smith, 28, of Hesperia, is now serving a sentence at Avenal State Prison for buying and receiving stolen property with prior convictions. He was the first to come forward with the allegations that prompted the criminal and administrative investigations, Eanet said.

When the criminal and internal affairs investigations were announced in April, the Sheriff’s Department had already fired rookie deputies Brock Teyechea, Andrew Cruz and Nicholas Oakley, who had been out of the training academy less than a year. In October, the department announced that four more deputies had been placed on paid leave during the investigation, but refused to disclose their names.

Deputies, the lawsuits allege, would routinely stun inmates with their Taser guns, deprive them of sleep by entering their cells in the middle of the night, stunning them with Taser guns as they slept or by blaring loud music over the jail’s intercom. Smith’s lawsuit alleges deputies also played audio clips of the horror film “Silence of the Lambs” in the middle of the night to taunt inmates.

Smith and other inmates also allege Teyechea sprayed pepper spray under their cell doors, causing them to become violently ill or press their faces against a ceiling air vent to avoid the caustic chemicals.

Investigators documented Smith’s injuries by taking photographs of burn marks on his body caused by the electric shock of a Taser gun, according to Smith’s lawsuit.

Along with Teyechea, Cruz and Oakley, other defendants named in the lawsuits include McMahon, West Valley Capt. Jeff Rose, and deputies Robert Escamilla, Russell Kopasz, Robert Morris, Eric Smale and Daniel Stryffeler.

The alleged inmate abuse was institutional, learned and either ignored or condoned at the very top, the lawsuits allege.

“Certainly, it’s more than just the three (deputies) who were fired,” said Eanet.

McMahon has remained unflappable through it all, standing by the actions of his deputies and how the Rancho Cucamonga jail is operated. He denies a culture of inmate abuse there, chalking the transgressions up to a few bad apples no longer within the department.

He hosted a media tour of the jail in May, touting its medical and dental facilities and ongoing upgrades, including electronic kiosks that will allow inmates to file grievances, request medical aid and order commissary items. All units at the jail are also being equipped with surveillance cameras.

The San Bernardino County Grand Jury, in its annual report released on July 1, gave the county’s jails a glowing review and characterized relations between inmates and deputies at the jails as “good.”

But the Berkeley-based prisoner advocacy nonprofit Prison Law Office sees things differently. It has fielded more than 700 complaints from inmates over the last few years alleging excessive use of force by deputies, shoddy medical treatment and neglect.

“We identified problems with medical, mental health and dental care, excessive use of force by deputies, failure to protect inmates from violence by other inmates, and violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act,” said Kelly Knapp, a staff attorney with the Prison Law Office. “They are failing to provide reasonable accommodations for inmates with disabilities and are discriminating against them from access to certain programs such as fire camp.”

The Prison Law Office has been working with the Sheriff’s Department to address the problems and could have an agreement in place within the next month, Knapp said.

If the problems are not adequately addressed and negotiations break down, the Prison Law Office may consider a lawsuit. If that happens, the Sheriff’s Department has already agreed not to argue certain defenses in court such as inmates not following the proper grievance process before taking legal action or the statute of limitations lapsing, Knapp said.

Through his spokeswoman, Cindy Bachman, McMahon declined to comment for this report, saying it would be inappropriate given the ongoing investigation. But he did say he would be willing to sit down and discuss the investigation after it is complete.

Joe Nelson is an award-winning investigative reporter who has worked for The Sun since November 1999. He started as a crime reporter and went on to cover a variety of beats including courts and the cities of Colton, Highland and Grand Terrace. He has covered San Bernardino County since 2009. Nelson is a graduate of California State University Fullerton. In 2014, he completed a fellowship at Loyola Law School's Journalist Law School program.

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